Abstract

This IIASA Working Paper has seven essentially simple and straightforward aims:

(1) To suggest the essential unity of purpose among alternative strategies which attempt to investigate the Decision-Making Procedure.$

(2) To offer a framework (the decision 2-space) in which the antecedents, the processing formulas and the consequences of any decision may be seen, critiqued and acted upon.

(3) To argue the advantages of an initial 3-pronged excursion this framework; in order to test the comparative effectiveness of these three potential investigation strategies.

(4) To explicate how the Direct Scaling technique of S.S. Stenus would approach the Decision Process (and to argue its merits).

(5) To argue that the Pandora's Box of problems which seemingly face the decision maker is an illusion: 3 (and perhaps only 2) parameters are sufficient to describe the "value" -- past, present, and future -- which society places on features of the environment, of energy production and of those social values themselves.

(6) To suggest a procedure for generating "events" actual or hypothetical whose consequences and impacts can be examined, scaled along several criteria, and the equivalency of the criteria exactly specified. Progress toward this inter-criterion equivalency is really the heart of this working paper.

(7) To offer one experimental route by which these issues might be examined in the context of a study addressing "Public Support for a Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Plant in the GDR."

For some of these aims, several pages are required to propose, define and rationalize the purpose. For others, often a single diagram, table or paragraph suffices to set the framework for the idea. Implementation is left to the group or person closest to the source of data.

The Paper is intended to be searching and exploratory in tone, rather than rigorous or proof-specific.